Facsimiles (or faxes) are a telecommunications technology used to send/receive copies of documents (facsimiles) using devices placed in communication over a network such as a telephone network (i.e., telecommunication network) and/or Internet. Traditionally, when sending documents to people at long distances or who are remotely located, fax transmission has a distinct advantage over postal mail or courier in that the delivery of the document is nearly instantaneous.
Fax machines enable the electronic transmission and reception of facsimiles (faxes) to a recipient. Although devices for transmitting printed documents electrically have existed in various forms since the mid-20th century, modern fax machines became relatively widely available in the mid-1970s as electronic sophistication increased with expanding infrastructure and costs of technologies decreased. Over time, faxing gradually became affordable, and by the mid-1980s, fax machines were widely used in commerce. Today, fax machines not only include devices, which are solely for sending and receiving faxes, but can also include devices such as computers, personal digital assistants, and image forming apparatuses such as multi-functional printers (or MFPs).
Although the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based document transmission systems, fax devices still retain their advantages particularly in the transmission of sensitive material which, due to legislative mandates regarding privacy such as, for instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), cannot be transmitted over the Internet unencrypted. In many countries, electronic signatures on faxed documents such as contracts and other agreements are recognized as binding.
Fax machines typically consist of an image scanner, a communications interface (modem), and a graphic user interface (GUI) for the interaction of the user with the fax device. An image scanner optically scans a document and converts it to a digital image. In operation, a user places a page of a document to be electronically transmitted onto the surface of the platen, enters a telephone number of a fax device into a graphical user interface (GUI), and then hits a “SCAN” or “SEND” button. The document is scanned into a digital representation and stored in memory. The fax machine then dials the telephone number of the recipient fax machine. Once the communication between the sending machine and the receiving machine has been established, the digitized image is transmitted.
It can be appreciated that unsolicited fax advertising and/or other unwanted faxes (i.e., junk faxes) are very common today and can randomly be sent by computer devices over the Internet and telecommunication lines to multiple fax machines without much effort. It can be appreciated that by selectively printing faxes, a reduction in total fax paper consumption can be obtained as well as reducing the use of printing supplies including toner, ink and/or other print material, and other natural resources for faxes, which are not wanted or requested by the recipient. Furthermore, a system or method as described herein can reduce the burden of separating necessary (or wanted) faxes from those which are not wanted when each of the faxes comprise one or more pages or sheets. Accordingly, it would be desirable in accordance with an exemplary embodiment to have a system and method for an image forming apparatus, which selectively prints incoming facsimiles and faxes.